<p>I love this show . Abby Lee , the dance teacher seems so real ! I love all the back- stabbing that goes on with the moms ! Am I the only one to love this show ? I am getting a bit tired of all those SYTYCD re-runs !</p>
<p>Love it! My daughter dances and after she watches it, she tells me how grateful she is that I’m a relatively normal dance mom (at least in comparison). 
Everyone in her dance company watches it, too. It’s the favorite topic of discussion at pointe class. I heard there will be a second season, and I can’t wait to see more of Abby Lee in action!</p>
<p>I caught it a couple of times because I didn’t switch channels after project runway. I thought it was horrific. I see a lot of therapy in those little girls futures. (the 2 I saw involved the really crazy lady who ended up showing up at a competition and had deliberately stolen the one little girl’s music).</p>
<p>Every now and again. Crazy as those moms seem, I can see some cutthroat competitions in other areas of parental life!</p>
<p>Yes, that mom Kathy is quite the villain , stealing Chloe’s music ! I love the part where Abby says to Kathy " and who have you got in a show in NY ? " and when Kathy says she has a girl who went to NY , but not in a show , Abby Lees says " FAILURE ! " I like this show but the moms all look like the housewives of NY show ! They are always in full make-up and cocktail dresses ! This show is a bit more believable than " Toddlers & Tiaras " ! Now those babies getting spray tans for competition is really awful ! It’s all wonderful diversion !</p>
<p>I’ve caught this show sometimes…I figure skated competitively for several years when I was younger and there are definitely some comparisons…Some of my coaches were tough, but they never had Abby’s nastiness. And I always felt that my parents and my coach were on the same page, not at odds with one another.</p>
<p>The show that really scares me is the one about the little girls in beauty pageants…I really don’t understand people living in a trailer/doublewide spending $1800 on a pageant dress for a 6 year old to wear once! At least that happened on the episode I caught the other day when I could not find the remote to change the channel…I ended up watching several episodes in a row in a sort of horrified fascination. Part of me is horrified that there are parents like that out there…and another part of me is more horrified that they want to be on national tv!</p>
<p>Just wait til they come out with College Confidential moms…with Abby Lee as the private guidance counselor, the moms carpooling the kids to competitive community service extracurriculars, SAT prep classes, sports matches…</p>
<p>“Chloe finally got her chance to shine at the ACT test because Maddy only took the SATs.”</p>
<p>“Brooke wants to quit cheerleading and take up speed knitting”</p>
<p>“Why does it always seem that Nia gets the stereotypical country in the Model UN?”</p>
<p>[Not that I watch the show. Not at all.]</p>
<p>The sad thing is there really are moms like this in real life , but not quite so extreme . How amazing is it when Michelle’s mom has coffee with the director of the dance video ! Why doesn’t Michelle just go audition for Broadway now ! She certainly is the total acting and dance package . There are loads of great shows on Broadway now , like Billy Elliot , Mary Poppins , etc . She could start voice lessons and be a triple threat . Mackenzie , her little sister would probably get a small crowd part .</p>
<p>I have a question for the dance mom’s out there. Is it even realistic that the different age/skill level girls would be grouped together like this on a dance team? It seems odd to me that girls like Maddie and Chloe would even be in a class or competing with girls so much younger and on such a different skill level. When DD took dance classes (not competition dance) the girls were always grouped by age, and the ones who competed did so by age group. </p>
<p>That being said, it is interesting to watch.</p>
<p>Yup - a guilty pleasure. But I always wonder - when are the girls in school? When are the moms at work?</p>
<p>love this show, I hate all the drama though, I would prefer if they show more of girl’s dancing. They are incredible, sooooo talented, wow, and I like that they completely ignore all that drama that is going on. From prospective of a parent with D. on sport team from age 5 forward, I can also attest that coach’s/instructor’s screaming does not contribute to successful perforamance at all, it just aggravates everybody. All (kids and parents) know that screaming will affect their performance very negatively, all know that but a coach. I do not like drama in any of the shows that I watch, “Next American Model” or “Say Yes to the dress” or “what not to wear”, I just want to see participant’s perforamcne and nice clothes, drama is when I do not pay attention at all, complete waste of precious show time.</p>
<p>I think it’s crazy how Abby Lee is a dance teacher but she is morbidly obese… A little hypocritical to be so hard on the girls when she can’t do half of what they do. Watching the kids get upset is upsetting in itself - they are so young and they don’t need crazy amounts of pressure on them to perform. Maddie’s parents seem so messed up - who in their right mind would let their two tiny kids go alone to a competition while you’re going on vacation with your boyfriend? Yikes! This show is in the same realm as Toddlers & Tiaras, imo. Pretty addictive, though!</p>
<p>parentofpeople, </p>
<p>At my D’s studio, the companies or teams were put together based on abililty level which, as it turns out, is fairly well correlated to age. On Dance Moms, the oldest girl, Brooke, and the youngest, MacKenzie, don’t belong on this team IMO.</p>
<p>At competitions, dancers in a group don’t have to be the same age, and competitions vary in how they define age divisions. Typically, they go by average age of the dancers in the group, but sometimes by age of the oldest dancer.</p>
<p>BTW, in 15 years as a competition dance mom, I never saw people behave the way these folks do.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see photos of Abby at 12 or 15 - she obviously has a track record with dancing , or she would not have been chosen to be the dance teacher for this show . She is seriously obese , however !</p>
<p>Love the show…</p>
<p>I love this show, but I think a lot of it is faked. The mothers are just horrible. My daughter was on a gymnastics team for years. There were some bad “gym moms,” but they were pretty reasonable compared to this crew.</p>
<p>I do not care if a teacher is obese or ugly or whatever, there are plenty of coaches who are not in shape. Apparently she is a talented instructor because girls keep on winning. However, I do not like her behavior most of the time, they could be as successful or even more so if she was more civil. But, we would not have a show though, so maybe she does it for the show, since girls do not care one way or another, they just listen. They are awesomely talented and know how to handle loosing, All of them are great!</p>
<p>Picking up on MiamiDAP’s post #11 brought to mind some of my son’s soccer coaches over the years…S3 played on a club team that played all over the US and internationally as well. When the boys were younger (like the ages of the girls in the show) the coach never really yelled at them. He would forgive a physical mistake on the field, like if a young player shanked a ball when taking a shot.</p>
<p>But he was not so forgiving of mental mistakes…you needed to be where you belonged and doing what you were supposed to be doing–if you got beaten once, ok–you knew you were on thin ice. Make the same mistake a second time? you knew you were going off the field at the next substitution. Coach never raised his voice or even said a word. The player would have to sit down, figure it out, and then go talk to the coach, identifiying his mistake and what he could do next time instead…and then get put back on the field when the coach was satisfied.</p>
<p>The boys learned so much from this coach! And he was such a good teacher…if a boy was having trouble on the field, and couldn’t figure out what to do, he would then have the boy watch the play with him, and have the boy give running commentary/critique of what he saw, with the coach then asking guiding questions. (ie., three out of four times, player #7 has done X to get around the player marking him–how can you counter this/prevent him from going to his favorite move?/defend this?</p>
<p>The kids had a very healthy respect for him…you didn’t do what you needed to do, you lost playing time. You were expected to do what you needed to do at all time-- be early, be equipped, be fit (a mile in under 6 minutes and 3 miles in under 20 minutes for high school age players), be smart, be respectful at all times to everyone…despite his calm demeanor, he tolerated NOTHING and the kids knew it.</p>
<p>The coach was just as uncompromising as Abby Lee, and just as demanding of excellent results–he just didn’t need to be nasty or demeaning or loud to make his points.</p>
<p>LasMa - this is reality TV -they have to step it up ! . This show seems more like it was filmed in the deep south .</p>
<p>^^ Oh, I know they need drama or there’s no show. If a camera crew had ever come to our studio, it would have been a real snooze-fest for viewers, and I suspect that’s the case virtually everywhere. If you’ve never been exposed to dance, just know that this show is not an accurate portrayal of life in a studio. For example, NO ONE wears stage makeup and costume earrings to class every day, as several of these kids do. And those roomy private dressing rooms that they get week after week – pure fantasy.</p>
<p>It is entertaining though. D and I roll with laughter.</p>